Addicted to Spin

Different Day, Same Speech

President Bush’s State of the Union Address, while confidently delivered, was a virtual recap of his prior rhetoric. At a time when most Americans have been clamoring for change, the President offered business as usual.

Beginning with the War On Terror, he stated that we will stay the course in Iraq until we have achieved victory. Whatever that means. He didn't say. Killing all the terrorists, perhaps? Notably, he mentioned Osama twice, and described the terrorists as Islamic Extremists, which will anger many in the Middle East.

On the domestic front, he declared his intention to cut federal programs that are “not fulfilling essential priorities.” Which apparently means Medicare, Student Loans and other programs that principally benefit working-class families. But he wants to promote tax-free medical savings account that will principally benefit upper-income and wealthy Americans. Very compassionate.

But he made sure to note that anyone criticizing him or his policies was, in effect, accusing America of being “in decline” and “doomed to unravel.” In other words, critics are un-American.

Ultimately, his determinedly optimistic speech never affirmed nor acknowledged the distress, anxiety and concern average citizens feel over the mess in Iraq, the Health Care disaster and the broad loss of jobs and earning power.

Bush remains in Wonderland. And the nation remains headed in the wrong direction.

Heartless Fred Barnes, Conservative

Anyone watching CNBC Monday might have caught Fred Barnes, conservative pundit and executive editor of The Weekly Standard, defending the Bush Administration. When asked if the “interrogation technique” known as water-boarding were torture, Barnes quickly sneered and stated that water-boarding wasn’t torture.

Which demonstrates that Fred Barnes is a callous, heartless man. Saying that water-boarding isn’t torture is like saying that beer isn’t alcohol. If our soldiers were water-boarded by the Iraqi insurgency--that is, repeatedly dunked upside down in a tub of cold water to the brink of unconsciousness and death by drowning--we would be apoplectic with rage. And savage, insensitive pundits like Barnes would no doubt be calling for the nuclear destruction of Iraq and the rest of the Middle East.

But beyond the moral bankruptcy of Fred Barnes, his comments are typical of pretending-to-be-compassionate conservatives. In the past five years, their notion of compassion has come to include hatred, anger, rage and retribution. And now, torture. No wonder their intellectual house is on fire.

The conservative revolution is becoming the conservative disaster, and with each passing interview, press conference, mismanaged agency, budget crisis and influence scandal, the true nature of their cause is being exposed. Beneath lies a fanatically mean-spirited, divisive, vengeful, greedy and immoral core. And all the pretzel logic, Orwellian double speak and redefinitions will fail, in the end, to hide this fact.

Sorry, Fred. Water-boarding is torture. And the politicians you voted for crafted a policy approving torture. So please, either grow a brain and grasp that fact, or grow a backbone and tell us who you really are.

Culture of Lies

Tucker Carlson, of all people, loves to claim that conservative commentators use measured arguments while liberal pundits are full of crap. But there is nothing measured about the debate on, say, abortion. To insist that a small bundle of cells should have the same rights as a living, breathing woman is neither measured, logical nor reasonable.

So just who are these measured conservative commentators? Let’s examine the most visible. Ann Coulter tops the list. Just today, she declared that liberal Supreme Court Justice Stevens should be given rat poison. There’s the makings of a fine, reasoned debate. And what about conservative Christian Mullah Pat Robertson? His latest grotesque and superstition-based statement attributed Ariel Sharon’s stroke to holy punishment for “dividing God’s land.” Nothing measured there. Who else? Bill O’Reilly? Rush Limbaugh? Ralph Reed? It’s hard to imagine a more angry, hate filled, bile spewing group of hyperbolic, unmeasured blabbermouths.

Tucker Carlson was really saying this: The conservative movement is based on fear mongering, faulty assumptions, fallacious arguments and superstition, but these flaws can be obscured by the blatant lie that our arguments are measured. If we just keep saying we are measured, people will begin to believe us, and it will slowly become “fact-like.”

In other words, their movement is based on lies. By the consistent, pervasive use of lies, they can slowly alter people’s perceptions of the truth and make the changes they want to make. They can shift more money to the wealthy. They can take more away from people who they feel don't deserve help. They can impose their religious superstitions on those who don’t share them. They can rape the land for short-term gain. They can create a more segregated society. They can put women back into their places.

President Bush has become a poster boy for lies. This week, he said of Supreme Court nominee Alito, “His judging isn’t about personal ideology.” Which was an outright lie. Judge Alito’s track record clearly demonstrates the opposite. But Bush wants to promote the lie that conservative judges aren’t activists. They decide cases based on a higher principle…the conservative principle! Thus, because they rule the way conservatives want, they are good people, and good people, by definition, can’t be activists.

What nonsense. But many people buy the lie. Conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer said yesterday on Fox News that the Palestinians who elected Hamas aren’t interested in ending corruption. According to him, they are all savvy, grown up voters who know perfectly well that a vote for Hamas is a vote for terror and killing, just the way they like it. Well, apparently their voting public is a lot more savvy than ours, because every time President Bush addresses a crowd, you’d think he was talking to a group of toddlers.

You see, they got them “wea-puns of mass de-struc-she-own.”

We’re gonna give ‘em what’s called “dem-ah-cruh-see.”

President Bush has succeeded not because voters are sophisticated and appreciate measured arguments. He has succeeded because people can be manipulated by big, bold lies. And conservatives have lying down to a science.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan insisted that “domestic spying” was an inappropriate description of what the government has been doing, because the phone calls being monitored have been “international,” that is, from America to a foreign nation or vice versa. The fact that we are spying on the domestic portion of potentially millions of calls no longer matters, in his view, because they are “international.” How stupid does he and his boss think the American people are? Pretty stupid, obviously. And perhaps they are right, given the victories produced by their lying.

When President Bush and John Kerry debated, Kerry blew the President out of the water, which was a wonderful contrast between the measured thinking of a moderate liberal and the hysterical, hollow sloganeering of conservatism. But the lies that were told about Kerry before and after ruined his presidential bid.

Until journalists grow spines and hold leaders accountable for their statements, the truth is in trouble. But with biased drama queens masquerading as journalists, like Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter, it’s difficult to see that happening any time soon.

Selling a Flood of Failure

In the face of overwhelming bad news, and despite their total control over Washington, Republican members of Congress are still trying to play the indignity card against their critics, using the talking-point mantra “Partisan Politics” to describe every unflattering or accusatory statement made by a non-conservative. But five years into the Bush experiment, as we approach the mid-term elections, true believers are faced with an almost impossible task.

They must spin the dismal failure of the strong-and-wrong Presidency into a success.

But they might have better luck spinning feces into gold. Here is what they are up against:

Just this week, as Karl Rove emerged from a cloud of suspicion to declare that the war on terror will be the key issue to electoral success for Republicans, reports emerged that the unconquered, reconstituted Taliban have taken over the tribal areas of Pakistan and are operating with impunity, holding open recruiting rallies and running terror training camps, probably at the direction of Al Qaeda. If Bush and Rove are so great at terror, they sure messed things up in Afghanistan, failing to come close to meeting our objectives there, much less catching the bad guys.

And just as White House spokesclown Scott McClellan emphatically denied that President Bush ever met felon lobbyist Jack Abramoff (despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign fundraising for Bush and his cronies), at least five photos have surfaced showing Jack and Dubya shaking hands. Ooops. Anyone who believes Bush has no connection to Abramoff probably believes in the Easter Bunny.

Adding insult to misery, a report was apparently given to the White House the day before Katrina hit New Orleans detailing how a Category 3 storm could break the New Orleans levies, displace a million residents, and kill sixty thousand citizens. So days later, when Bush uttered his famous “no one thought the levies would break” line, it turns out that many people did. And at the very least, his staff did, and didn’t tell him. Or else he forgot. Or lied. Just another big, costly Ooops.

And then there’s the little issue of illegal wiretapping. Nobody disputes that terrorists must be watched and stopped. But nobody in the Bush Administration has given a remotely credible explanation for why they can't use the existing system of surveillance authorization, created specifically for this kind of situation. In their usual, Orwellian way, they have begun redefining the issue, calling their actions “terrorist watching” instead of “wiretapping”. But the core legal issues remain, and they are deeply troubling. The Bush Administration wants us to accept that men like Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove can be trusted not to spy on their opponents or critics. Are we that stupid and gullible? Too bad we can't ask former President Nixon.

Beyond these immediate concerns, Republicans must also explain the long and dismal string of failures, misjudgments and scandals characterizing the Bush Executive Branch. They need to explain why Iraq is not rebuilding, and why so many billions of tax dollars have vanished there with no effect. They need to explain why the Bush attempt to re-form Social Security was an utter failure. They need to explain why our only economic policy is tax breaks (that mostly favor the rich) while we continue to spend ourselves into a massive hole. They need to explain why CEOs are making more money than ever but the paycheck of the average American is eroding. They need to explain why our medical delivery system is the worst in the developed world, yet all legislative efforts have been aimed at sweetheart deals for drug makers and HMOs.

At today’s confirmation vote for radical conservative Judge Alito, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham issued an angry challenge to Democrats, stating that if they make abortion an issue in the upcoming mid-terms, the Republicans will “clean their clocks.” Maybe in South Carolina, though he needs to be careful. Not everyone in America believes that an angel will slay a dragon in the end-days battle for Earth’s dominion (yes, it’s in the Bible--look it up). In other words, not every American is a delusional fundamentalist.

But many Americans are coming to smell something rotten at the core of our Republican-run government. The beating heart of that enterprise, President Bush, implies daily through minions that his opponents are communistic, baby killing, America hating, indecent, traitorous heretics. But the vast and growing mountain of evidence points to a different truth. President Bush will likely go down as one of the worst in our history, a dismal, divisive, inept loser. And the GOP are going to have a tough time selling damaged goods come November. As the bad news continues to flow and the scandals continue to grow, the American people deserve a lot better than Bush and his true believers.

Court Exposes Conservative Lie

Today’s Supreme Court ruling affirming Oregon’s so-called Right To Die Law exposes cultural conservatism for what it is: a manipulative, distorted, hypocritical lie.

The Supreme Court found that Oregon’s law is constitutional, and that Federal statutes, such as those pertaining to controlled substances, don’t apply.

Following decades of conservative rhetoric about the supremacy of states’ rights, you would think Supreme Court conservatives would be the ones siding with Oregon's law. But Scalia, Thomas and Roberts were the dissenting minority! (Note that with radical Judge Samuel Alito taking the place of Sandra Day O'Connor, this would likely have been a 5-4 decision rather than a 6-3 decision, yet another reason to vote against his nomination.)

Which brings us to the truth. Cultural conservatives claim they want states to have maximum autonomy when writing laws, insisting that Federalism should be tightly construed, but what they really want is for states to be able to pass laws prohibiting abortion and contraception. Conservatives care about their pet issues, not states’ rights, which today's ruling proves. They side with states when it suits their purposes, and they side with the Federal Government, as in this case, when it suits their purposes.

So the Federalism issue is a smoke-screen, obscuring the real conservative agenda: to prevent reproductive freedom. Their objection to Oregon’s law is motivated by the same fanaticism behind their objection to reproductive freedom--that their God doesn’t like abortion, contraception or suicide.

Fortunately, not all Americans are ruled by superstition, and today’s Supreme Court decision upholds common sense and reason. To those who disagree with it, I would suggest the following: don’t have an abortion, don’t use contraception, don’t seek assisted suicide, and don’t restrict the rest of us based on your superstitions. After all, isn’t liberty the American way?

Tyranny, Superstition and Lindsey Graham

Senator Lindsey Graham exposed the grotesque, irrational and offensive core of religious conservatism today when questioning--or rather lecturing us during--Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's confirmation. Graham read an excerpt from the confirmation comments of Justice Ginsberg, wherein she discussed and defended the right to an abortion relative to the Constitution. Her words were sensible, reasoned and entirely rational, and only a deluded, unsympathetic monster would have disagreed with them. But Lindsey Graham did.

Graham seems to believe that an “unborn child” should have exactly the same rights as an adult woman. This belief could only come from a religious--that is, superstitious--conviction that a two-celled zygote is a full and complete human person. And of course, it's not. Not even close. Unless you believe, like some fundamentalist fanatics, in magic, in the notion that tiny embryos are instantly granted perfect personhood, including a mature soul that makes them, say, more valuable to the Universe than the animating spirits of other creatures, imbuing embryos with some special status equal to conscious people who breath the air of life.

While it often makes sense to harbor a special, primal concern for our own species, and particularly our children, the magical notions held by the anti-abortion crew are nonsensical gibberish, and appeal to the minds of people who have decided to relinquish their reason in favor of blind belief in fables that would provide tremendous certainty if they were true--but are almost certainly false or grossly imbellished. Some human beings want to believe that the Bible is the true word of God against which all else is false. But the Bible is filled with contradiction, superstition, ambiguity and outright hocus pocus. The Old Testament sanctions slavery, for example, and the lunatic Book of Revelations makes Harry Potter look boring and tame.

I would never prohibit people from believing and advertising ludicrous notions like “I will get seventy virgins in paradise if I am martyred,” or “anyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus as their personal savior will go to fiery hell and damnation for the rest of eternity.” But these same people want to prohibit the actions of others based on superstition. Which is reprehensible, intellectually indefensible and dangerous to the modern notion of liberty.

When Justice Ginsberg says that a living, breathing human woman has a fundamental right to control her body, she isn’t trying to force anyone to have an abortion. And her adherence to this principle is only abhorrent to tyrants. When Alito gets to implement his opinion that abortion is not protected by the Constitution, he destroys the liberties of all women. This is a huge difference, one that Senator Graham and others don’t care to acknowledge. “Pro-life” isn’t about protecting living humans. It is about restricting living humans to benefit embryos. And while embryos are essential to our survival and extremely important, to put them on a par with living, breathing humans is stupid and, well, just plain crazy.

But then again, so is believing that any book is “The True Word of God”. I’m sorry to be rude, but I have lost patience. Too many people in this country are on the verge of having their liberties curtailed because of the magic and superstition contained in an ancient book, and it’s time we stopped glossing over the seriousness of this fact. Go ahead, believe that when the world ends we will behold "a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and ten crowns upon his heads." But don’t try to convince me that there is anything rational or reasonable about such a faith. And don’t try to restrict the rights of living, breathing humans because of these superstitions.

Anyone who objects to abortion shouldn't have one. And they should restrict the tyranny of their superstitions to their own minds.

Dis-Honest Mistakes

Infamous Harley rider Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent motorcycle accident exposed the fact that the California Governor didn’t actually have a license to drive a motorcycle. He explained that he just never thought to get one. He had better things to do than obey quaint laws.

Apparently, the Republican Lie Machine has placed this tactic at the top of its Crisis Response List, which must look something like this:

If caught lying, giving jobs to unqualified cronies, endorsing torture, laundering money, exchanging votes for money, accepting illegal campaign contributions, trading on inside information, making radical statements about the Constitution, drunken driving or driving without a license, look straight at the cameras and say the most fitting of the following statements…

“I just never thought about it.”
“It never occurred to me that it was wrong.”
“I never thought it was that important.”
“I was just too busy to notice.”
“Bill Clinton did the same thing.”
“It was twenty years ago.”

Even thought none of these statements would prevent a poor person or minority from being tried and convicted of a crime, when such statements come from a white male Republican we can assume that he honestly and sincerely had a very good and legitimate reason for his actions and should be excused from any responsibility. When a junkie gets busted with drugs, he should be locked away forever. But when Rush Limbaugh gets his fat, white butt busted, hey, “It was an honest mistake.”

Indeed, it’s easy to imagine Arnold proclaiming that “laws are for the little people” as he speeds away in his golf cart, fat cigar hanging from his lips. And it’s easy to imagine the vast majority of Republican politicians saying the same thing at their respective country clubs. Exclusive, mostly-white country clubs, to be exact. These are the conservatives who run the Republican party, the Radical Right elites who feel entitled to stretch the rules and avoid the trivial obstacles, like licenses, that the rest of us live with. Of course, they are more worthy of mercy and understanding than the rest of us, too.

Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito didn’t feel obligated to discuss with the Senate today his 1985 statement that Roe v. Wade should be overturned. Yet his refusal to disavow the same statement affirms this conservative strategy:

We have the power, so we don’t need to tell the truth. And the American people are too busy trying to make ends meet (thanks to the failures of our economic policies!) to put all our deceptions together and discover that we are, in fact, working against their interests to benefit a small group of wealthy friends.

Statements like “Golly, it was an honest mistake,” have come to mean “I’m so important and powerful and self-righteous that I don’t need to be honest.” Fortunately, as the Greeks pointed out centuries ago, hubris always leads to nemesis. And the 2006 elections are right around the corner…

Defend Our Mistakes Tour '06

The Bush Administration continued its "Defend Our Mistakes Tour" this week, revamped for 2006, shuttling Dubya, Dick and others to various think-tank podiums to re-spin old rhetoric. Rather than saying anything new or truthful, they seemed to be hoping that the people who bought their lies several years ago would buy the same lies again if repeated often enough.

But their policy blunders have been so large and their ethical lapses so profound that nobody seems to be listening anymore, except a few crony reporters. The administration’s almost-daily press conferences amount to a new tragedy, as they divert valuable time and energy from the business of governing, a business in which Bush and his hapless crew are proven failures.

So the big issues facing the nation go unattended by our so-called leaders: A healthcare system verging disaster; a massive, bloated federal deficit; a destructive trade imbalance and currency devaluation; a widening gap between the wealthy and the rest of us; a federal bureaucracy staffed with inept cronies, business lackeys and industry insiders intent upon eviscerating the very powers their agencies wield.

But hey, Bush is good at clearing brush. At least we know he’s not a total sissy. Just a stubborn, hapless bungler with a broken moral compass.

We also have fresh evidence that the powerful people who support the Republican Mistake Machine are dangerous lunatics. With the public memory of his last grotesque comment fading, American Mullah Pat Robertson recently declared that Ariel Sharon’s stroke was proof that Sharon was being punished by the Lord for "defiling God’s land."

Between the phony religious values of the Bush gang and the delusional superstitions of Robertson and other fanatics, it’s easy to see their concept of God as small, flawed, juvenile, imperfect and pitiful, more a reflection of their own narrow, fearful human ignorance than an accurate depiction of the true nature of the Universe or its animating spirit.

The sooner we reject inept officials and crazy preachers the sooner our nation will choose reality over fantasy and fix the very real problems we face. Otherwise, we are guaranteed more of the same--and the same has been an unmitigated disaster of late.

Happy New Year…